By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Emirates Airlines says it will resume flight services to Nigeria from 1 October.
This comes over one year after it suspended operations in the country, arising from difficulties encountered in repatriating its trapped funds back to UAE.
In a statement published on its website on Thursday, the airline announced that it would resume daily service between Lagos and Dubai, offering customers more choice and connectivity from Nigeria’s largest city to and through Dubai.
“The service will be operated using a Boeing 777-300ER. EK783 will depart Dubai at 0945hrs, arriving in Lagos at 1520hrs; the return flight EK784 will leave Lagos at 1730hrs and arrive in Dubai at 0510hrs the next day,” the statement said.
According to the statement, tickets can now be booked on the airline’s website or via travel agents.
The announcement by the airline came after Nigeria’s Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, paid a working visit to the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Nigeria in Abuja.
“Yesterday, I paid a working visit to the Ambassador of the UAE to Nigeria, His Excellency, Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi at the UAE Embassy in Abuja,” the minister said in a tweet posted on his X handle Wednesday.
During the visit, he said Mr Al-Shamsi handed a correspondence from the Emirates Airline indicating a definite date of resumption of flights to Nigeria.
“That date will be formally announced by Emirates Airlines in a matter of days,” he said.
On Thursday, Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer said the airline is excited to resume services to Nigeria.
Mr Kazim said the Lagos-Dubai service has traditionally been popular with customers in Nigeria and that the airline hopes to reconnect leisure and business travellers to Dubai and onwards to its network of over 140 destinations.
“We thank the Nigerian government for their partnership and support in re-establishing this route and we look forward to welcoming passengers back onboard,” the statement quoted him saying.
Heritage Times (HT) recalls that in November 2022, Emirates suspended flights to Nigeria. It said the measure started on 29 October, 2022, and blamed it on its inability to repatriate its revenue from the country.
At the time, the airline said it had communicated its position to the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“Under these extraordinary circumstances, Emirates had no option but to suspend flights to/from Nigeria from 29 October 2022 to mitigate against further losses moving forward,” the airline management said.
